


Next Year All Our Troubles Will Be Miles Away

by Browneyesparker



Series: Bughead Stories [14]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas, Episode Tag, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Riverdale, Romance, Silent Night Deadly Night, angsty, bughead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Browneyesparker/pseuds/Browneyesparker
Summary: He’s suddenly not sure what compelled him to come all the way over to the Cooper’s house on Christmas day except Betty wasn’t answering his calls or his texts and he’d gotten worried. Another episode tag to "Silent Night, Deadly Night".





	Next Year All Our Troubles Will Be Miles Away

**.**

**This Christmas**

_“Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas_

_Let your heart be light_

_Next year all our troubles will be out of sight”_

Alice looks relieved when he opens the door and sees him standing on the porch.

“Betty’s been locked in the den all morning,” she tells him as she lets him inside and hands him a plate of cookies. “Maybe you can get her to come out before dinner’s ready.”

“Um. . .”

Alice waves him off. “She’s in the den, Jughead! _Go now_!”

Jughead looks at her retreating back into the kitchen and then sighs. He’s suddenly not sure what compelled him to come all the way over to the Cooper’s house on Christmas day except Betty wasn’t answering his calls or his texts and he’d gotten worried even though he couldn’t count how many texts he’d ignored from _her_ over the past few weeks.

He shakes his head and makes his way down the hallway, the door is closed and Jughead pauses for a second before raising his fist and rapping twice. He waits a few seconds and knocks again, he’s almost ready to give up when the door opens. Like usual, she’s impeccably dressed and there isn’t a hair out of place but she looks miserable. Her eyes are rimmed in red and her cheeks are blotchy, like she’s been crying. She looks surprised when she sees him and she quickly brushes away whatever tears are left.

“Jughead. . . wh-what are you doing here?” she asks, rocking back and forth slightly, her hands behind her back.

He wonders if she’s digging her nails into her palms, he brushes past her and puts the cookies down on the coffee table and meets her in the middle, grabbing her hands and holding onto them tightly. Bing Crosby is playing on the old record player on the bookcase and everything feels chaotic. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“You didn’t answer my question, Jughead. What are you doing here?” Betty asks.

“I. . . you didn’t answer my call or any of my texts. . . and I was worried about you,” Jughead answers lamely, he reaches out and touches her face. “Betty, what’s wrong? You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

Betty sighs. “I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this today because it’s Christmas. . . but I really don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Black Hood. I think Mr. Sevenson was just his fall guy and he’s still out there, waiting for us. I just want it to be over. I really want it to be over.”

“Betts—”

Betty shakes her head and let’s go of him, she goes over to the fireplace and pulls a black hood out of a metal box. “He said I’m just like him,” she confesses. “I-I don’t want to be like him, Juggie. . .”

Jughead feels his heart lurch a little and he goes to her, kneels down beside her and takes the ski mask from her, tosses it back in the box and closes the lid. “You’re not. . . whether the Black Hood was Mr. Svenson or not, you are not like him at all! You’re all good, Betty Cooper.”

A fresh batch of tears falls from Betty’s eyes. “No. No I’m not, if you knew. . . if you know what I’ve done, you wouldn’t be here right now. Why are you here?”

“You. . . the gift. . . the typewriter, I wanted to thank you for the typewriter. It was one of the nicest presents I’ve ever received,” Jughead says. He feels stupid even saying it aloud while she’s crying on her knees in front of him, completely unhinged.

She looks at him and starts to cry even harder. “You liked it? I’m so happy!”

Jughead turns off the music, silence fills the room and then he goes to her and sweeps her up in his arms and brings her over to the couch. “Shhh,” he soothes. “Shhh today isn’t a day for tears.”

“I-I just want everything to go back to normal,” Betty tells him as she buries her face in his chest. “I mean the normal we were getting used to after Jason was murdered.”

“Shhh, everything is going to be alright.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or next year,” Betty says. “Things could get worse. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Nothing is certain, Jughead.”

Guilt seeps into Jughead as he takes her chin in his hand and forces her to look at him. “Listen to me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Okay? I-I love you Betty, I really do. And I know my motivations for pushing you away might not be the best ones and you may not believe me when I say I did it for your protection. But I did, I did because you are my greatest weakness and if anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”

Betty leans in and kisses him then. When Jughead kisses her back, he can feel all the tension in her disappear and it feels like coming home. He realizes he’s supposed to be comforting her but he so desperately needs some from her too. He takes as much as he’s giving and his world shifts.

She rests her forehead against his and releases a deep breath. “Don’t let me go,” she whispers.

“I’m right here,” Jughead promises. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. Next year, it’ll be better. Next year, it’ll be better f0r all of us.”

She leans into him. “I hope so.”

“It will be,” Jughead repeats, kissing the side of her head, saying it over and over again for both their benefits because he doesn’t really know what the next year holds for anybody but he wants to believe it can get better.

Betty is still and a sense of calm comes over the room. One that wasn’t there before. It’s like calm after the storm, even though there is still one brewing and the only things that are certain that nothing is certain. Nothing is certain and this time, the only thing that’s going to break him and Betty apart will literally be _hell_ and not wannabe Serpent Queen or serial killers.

He’s going to make sure of it.

**TBC. . .**

**.**

**Author's Note:**

> Pretend, for the sake of the story that at some point Betty thanked Jughead for the book before he left or something. I just couldn’t work it in, I tried but it didn’t fit that well and also, this will turn out to be AU-ish but I wrote what I wish had happened in the end of the episode for Bughead. I hope you’ll tell me what you thought! I’m sure there are better fix-it fics out there, I just needed to add my two cents. I’m just going to leave it here now and hope it’s better than I think it is. The title and lyrics come from Judy Garland’s version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”.


End file.
